The demand for greater local control of natural resources has been a major driver for decentralization and regional autonomy in many countries. Everywhere in the world, co-management of natural resources has gained ground as a manifestation of this trend, in the context of environmental conservation and management of natural resources and co-management programmes, policies and projects have been widely promoted.

Always successful?
Co-management arrangements have proven to be a helpful instrument in overcoming a variety of problems formerly associated with state and centralized (fence and fine) styles of management. This does not imply that co-management projects are always successful, nor that implementation of these new management regimes is unproblematic. The conflicting nature of natural resources management and the widespread feelings of distrust between local populations, state agencies, conservationists and logging operators imply that building co-management regimes is a learning process for all parties involved. Also, there are differences between professional nature conservation organizations and local people in terms of objectives, views and practices. The former wish to protect ‘ecosystems' as a whole and often take a global perspective, while local people are more interested in specific resources relevant for fulfilling human needs at a local scale. Involvement of local communities is not a panacea for all forest management problems. Local perspectives and local knowledge do not always respond to the interests of national, global or downstream communities. Neither are poor forest management and conservation practices the exclusive domain of centralistic and top down forest managers - local communities can also contribute to forest degradation and forest loss.

Tropenbos International's viewpoint
Over the years, co-management has taken up a prominent position in Tropenbos International's (TBI) research programmes, in terms of understanding the social dimensions of sustainable forest management and conservation, developing modalities and approaches of co-management, and evaluating its effectiveness and constraints.

Through its programmes, whether research, capacity building or technical support, TBI contributes to well-informed decision making for improved management and governance of tropical forests. TBI believes that knowledge about collaborative forest management works for better lives and better conservation. TBI's work has shown that

• recognition and respect of customary principles of forest tenure and management are important. Management of production forests and protected areas should acknowledge these rights and seek to find a balance between local use and commercial or protection management;
• local stakeholders should have a voice in the definition and implementation of forest management plans (including those of forests managed for conservation). This begins with prior informed consent to changes in land use in their customary areas (such as new concessions and protected areas);
• in the process of decision-making on forest management, vulnerable stakeholders who combine a high dependence on forest resources with a weak power position during negotiations, should be granted special attention;
• the distribution of the benefits (in a broad sense) of natural resources management among all stakeholders will be fair;
• regardless of this emphasis on local rights, the interests of supra-local stakeholders (including the global community) require attention as well, which calls for an appropriate balance between central and local governance;
• local forest managers are not necessarily inclined to conserve their forest or manage it in a sustainable way. Research, capacity building and continuous improvement are needed to improve local lives and forests just as this is required to achieve sustainable management of production forests.

Our expertise

Resguardos and management of protected areas in Colombia
Since the early 1990s, TBI Colombia has been supporting the documentation and recovery of cultural and traditional knowledge through fellowships for indigenous researchers, especially on themes related to management and conservation of the tropical forest. This has provided a basis for supporting local indigenous communities in formulating territorial ordering plans and natural resources management plans - one of the conditions for local self-governance in ‘resguardos indigenas'.

The experiences with local communities, the development of methodologies for participatory research and social cartography and the results obtained have been a reason for the National Parks Agency to ask TBI Colombia to help them apply their expertise to deal with developing collaborative management approaches for areas where resguardos indigenas and National Parks overlap. This work is ongoing in the Amacayacu National Park, Cahuinari National Park and Puinawai National Reserve.

Multi-stakeholder management of protected areas and protection forests in the era of decentralization in Indonesia
Even though Indonesian regulations on protected areas management imply a fence and fine approach, successful implementation of co-management is widespread in Indonesia. A recent Ministerial Decree recognized that co-management is an important instrument to address problems of overlapping land use in conservation areas. Most examples are from conservation areas such as National Parks. One early example is Kayan Mentarang National Park in East Kalimantan, where WWF facilitated a long learning process towards co-management. TBI has supported the development of similar models in the Sungai Wain and Gunung Lumut Protection Forests, and Danau Sentarum and Betung Kerihun National Parks. Initiatives, mostly by NGOs, consist of the inventory of biodiversity and natural resources in the area, stakeholder analysis, research on communal land rights, the formation of multi-stakeholder management institutions, including local communities, meetings with the local communities, development of zoning plans, and trainings. As boundaries for protected areas are unclear and mapping are not integrated among the sectors, TBI makes sure that, through GIS and land use planning activities, area boundaries are set and integrated mapping helps to ease conflict of land use.

Allocation of forest lands to communities in Vietnam: does it benefit the people and the forest?
TBI's new research programme in Vietnam is centered on the Government policy to allocate former state-owned forests to communities. Several interrelated projects address the question whether local forest management indeed leads to a broadening of livelihoods options and reduced poverty for these communities, and whether tenure also implies a better management of these forests.

Obtain a better understanding of the possibilities of involving local populations in sustainable forest management in Cameroon
TBI's former research programme in Cameroon was centered on uniting forestry and forest management aspects with ecological knowledge and knowledge of local people's resource use. Tropical forest management in Cameroon aims to find an ecologically sound, socially acceptable, technically feasible and economically attractive balance between various land-use options.